


End of a World, Beginning of Another

by jasmiinitee



Series: Plan B for a few Problem Gems [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Gen, Infinity Stones, Jane gets voluntarily kidnapped to save the universe, Knowhere, Platonic feels, Post-Ragnarok, Revengers team, That's My Kink, also.... Grandmaster's bro?, and oh boy they are, but it's still a wild ride, infinity war fix-it, it's the place to go when you're really desperate, nice, this is fluff and angst in a good ratio and no one dies okay
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-01
Updated: 2018-05-17
Packaged: 2019-04-30 22:02:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 9,441
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14506389
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jasmiinitee/pseuds/jasmiinitee
Summary: The Revengers pick up Jane Foster on the way and try to figure out a way to dismantle the Infinity Stones before those gems end up causing any more damage. Managing a humanitarian crisis in the meantime is not really helping, but at least a common goal can be a strong uniting force. The Tesseract is safe between spaces (for now), and they can only hope that the Aether is still where it was last left.Shouldn’t concentrated magical energy of an entire universe be harder to contain than to spread safely across all reality, anyway?Post-Ragnarök / IW fix-it without me seeing IW and without even meaning to.





	1. You put it in your pocket?

**Author's Note:**

> The story of how a ship full of boat immigrant Aesir, a bunch of Sakaarian gladiators, and two Midgardians tried to make themselves at home in the middle of nowhere, while aiming the course to Knowhere, all in an effort to save at least a few more planets from their looming fate.
> 
> I don't believe in Infinity War, just saying, so now I'm starting this project instead.

Valkyrie, Korg and a young healer had overlooked the distribution of water for drinking and washing faces, but they wouldn’t last for long. And Loki knew that they wouldn’t be getting more resources any time soon. 

A mother had started singing somewhere in the middle of the ship near the doors, perhaps in a side storage now made into a cramped family room. It was half lullaby, half lament, just a soft keening tune without a full poem. Though the space inside the main hall was wide, all seventeen hundred inside had hushed to listen to her song. The singer changed at some point, but the tone remained the same – perhaps her daughter, Loki liked to think, but it could have just as well been another new neighbour in that miserable hull. Families were broken more than they were intact.  
His included. Thor was standing silently in front of the tall windows. They were truly alone, slowly swimming through the endless dark, away from where Yggdrasil’s crown was cut and chopped and burned to ashes by Loki’s own hand. 

Or at least he had been the one to invite a woodsman to cut off the branch from underneath them. To start Ragnarök, and the end for that demise was nowhere to be seen.

“There’s something I need to talk to you about,” Loki said slowly stepping closer to Thor’s side. It was familiar, and ridiculous, and it made his whole body strain from a wave of trepidation – but at the same time it felt much like stepping into his favourite boots. Everything was well and good. It shouldn’t have made him so suspicious.  
“What do you mean?” Thor asked, sounding wary already, even if he tried to hide it from Loki’s ears. Loki gave him a long look – it wasn’t that easy to fool him, really, Thor could have done better – and tried to let go of the ridiculous fear that gripped his throat, breathing out a slow sigh. They could reason with each other, he just had to convince himself of that. Thor would want to understand him, surely. There was no problem to fight over, just an issue they’d have to tackle together.  
“Don’t look at me like that,” Loki said, but kept his exasperated huff to himself. He didn’t want to bait Thor, and he couldn’t attack, but it shouldn’t have been so difficult.  
“Like what? Like I’m worried?” Thor asked. He looked at Loki in a sharper way, though, searching for something with his one good eye.  
Lies, probably. Just like the good old days.

“You look tired,” Thor said instead. Loki lifted a brow at him - that was a rather obvious statement, and Thor wasn’t better off himself.  
“Well, apologies. Should I get you someone else on this ship?” he asked, but softly, and nodded over his shoulder to where people tried to prepare for sleep in the open hall. It wasn’t a real jab. Luckily Thor understood and only rolled his eye.  
“No,” he said quietly. “What is it?”

“It’s nothing about you, but it’s very important. I need to talk to you, brother,” Loki managed without choking, and hoped that whatever Thor saw in his eyes was convincing enough. There was enough of a pause for Thor to look away for a few heartbeats.  
“Did you do something?” he asked, and the way his tone lightened felt like a knife struck right through Loki’s throat.  
Thor, you fool, was what he wanted to say. He was trying to be fun, cursed idiot with too much good will and trust left for him. He tried to joke, even, tried to jest to ease their worries.

“I did,” Loki had to reply, and he saw that warmth crumble away once more. Thor’s posture shifted, and he had to force himself not to take a step back and flee once more. Would it be like that forever? Loki couldn’t say.  
“What is this about?” Thor asked.  
“I want to tell you, and that’s why I need to talk to you,” he said and looked up at Thor, hoping that his reply would not be a thunderstorm. “But not here, where everyone can hear.”  
There was no charge in the air even if Thor’s expression grew darker, and Loki felt like it shouldn’t have been such a great relief. The smile he gave Thor when he nodded was still a strained one. 

Agreeing nod aside, Thor didn’t waste time dragging him away from the makeshift throne and through a door. The wide windows of the starboard cockpit opened up to a view of black space just like the tall and grand ones in the main hall.  
“Tell me, and I’ll listen,” Thor said when he let go of Loki’s elbow. He looked even more worried than he had been, and Loki realised that he had been keeping up a firm pretense of peace and trust just for the sake of Asgard.

But now it was just the two of them.

“Before you and your friends… well, before you met Banner,” Loki started carefully and swallowed, but tried to look a bit less miserable. It was enough to have one of them look as pale and worn as a ghost, and he had been the source of most of Thor’s hardships, hadn’t he. Thor looked at him in silence for a moment, before sitting down on a steel crate, elbows on his knees. He motioned for Loki to go on.  
“If this is about the Hulk,” Thor said and smiled kindly. Loki shook his head and lifted his hands to cut that thought as quickly as possible. And maybe it was a little like relocating a joint: painful, horrible, and with an unsure outcome, but still better to be done quickly.  
So he said: “No. This is about the, uh, the Tesseract.” 

Thor sat up and his face blanched. Loki waited, heart hammering in his throat, but he said nothing more. Just stared at Loki, eyebrows climbing high up on his forehead.  
“And this is about… about who wanted it,” Loki added.

There was a long moment of silence.

“Okay,” Thor said, and even if it wasn’t fully a growl, it wasn’t a happy ‘okay’ either. Loki closed his eyes for a moment, but he kept himself from fleeing the mess he alone was to blame, again. He didn’t run. He had to tell Thor, and he needed help, and whole Asgard needed help –  
“You took it, didn’t you,” Thor said. It wasn’t even a question, so Loki didn’t reply. He just shrugged a little and gave a weak smile. Thor didn’t answer it.

Should have seen that one coming.

“I thought that even my hands would be safer than Surtur’s,” Loki offered. Thor scoffed lightly at that, shaking his head.  
“Where is it?” he asked.  
“Safe, for now. But I can’t keep it hidden for long,” Loki admitted. “I put it inside a pocket –”  
“In your pocket? An infinity stone?” Thor asked, sounding alarmed and confused, and for a moment the question jumbled Loki’s thoughts too.  
“What? No, no, inside a pocket I created between spaces,” he said and huffed out a shaky breath. “I have a few of those if you remember,” Loki added and gave Thor a look that hopefully wasn’t too apprehensive. In all truth, Thor’s worry was starting to seep through his skin too, and he did sound a bit more scatterbrained than usual. Loki had already grown used to Thor being the steady one, in the last decade.  
“Oh, thank god,” Thor replied, only making Loki frown harder.  
“Thank what?” he asked and felt a burning dread rise up in his throat. What god? Thor had no right to start talking through delusions now – no fever dreams, all right – not when it was just the two of them left. “What are you talking about?”  
“No, I just… everyone kept saying it on Midgard,” Thor said and waved it off like nothing. 

Loki didn’t feel so sure about it, but he didn’t know how to ask. All that made him feel anxious, the back of his neck and arms prickling. He pulled his chin up.  
“All right,” he said slowly, looking at Thor at length. He didn’t take the bait. “Well, that brings us to Midgard.”  
“What about it?” Thor asked, leaning forward.  
“We can’t go there. Not yet. Or rather we can’t stay. We can’t land,” Loki forced out, and squared his shoulders for the backlash he had already expected.

“That’s not your call, Loki! We need help, and the people of Midgard can give that,” Thor snapped and stood up, glaring at Loki.  
“Thor,” he tried to say, but was cut off quickly.  
“I can’t believe that you’d be so proud to refuse that help now, when we’re on our way already. We’ve hardly enough food and water to last over a week,” Thor growled and lifted a hand to point at his chest. Like it was Loki’s fault that they didn’t have enough, when it was thanks to him that they had anything at all. He slapped Thor’s hand away and shoved at his chest.  
“If you would shut your mouth for long enough to listen to me,” he snapped, “then I would tell you where my ‘pride’ comes from!”  
Thor shut up after that.  
“I can keep the Tesseract hidden with me for a few days more, perhaps a week. After that, I fear, there will be a man on our tails wishing to collect what he already tried to get through me,” Loki told him. 

Thor’s shoulders fell even as he crossed his arms, and if it were possible in any reality, Loki wouldn’t have said no to another tight hug. As they were, it wasn’t going to happen any time soon.  
“I take it he’s not a nice man,” Thor said slowly, not quite asking. Loki closed his eyes and turned his head, not quite answering.  
“Heimdall said that he feels like someone is looking our way already. We can’t stay on Midgard if you wish to save that wretched place from our fate,” he said instead, and could hardly believe the words coming out of his own mouth. “We need to take the Gem away.”

Thor took a deep breath and turned around to face the windows again. Loki could see his face in the reflection, worried and in deep thought, but he stepped carefully closer. They stood side by side in silence.  
“If we do that, what are you going to do with it?” Thor asked and looked at him.  
“I was actually thinking that we might destroy it,” Loki said. “We’d find a way.”  
“How?” Thor asked, and his voice was thick with some emotion Loki didn’t want to guess. “What way is there to destroy it?” he asked. Loki chewed on his lip and tried to find out a way to suggest his plan without sounding entirely deranged.

“For that, we might have to pick up one thing from Midgard,” he said. Thor looked a little confused.  
“But not stop there?”  
“I talked with Heimdall, and he said that it will take a while still, before the branches wither and die. We might be able to reach it from here,” Loki said, shrugging. The details were not that important to explain to Thor right then, not when they both knew that travel without Bifröst was possible as well. It just wasn’t that easy.  
“Then what do you need?” Thor asked. Loki screwed his eyes shut.  
“How mutual exactly was your and Jane’s breakup?”


	2. Do you think we need help?

“Then what do you need?” Thor asked. Loki was silent as ever, when he stepped beside him, proclaiming Midgard forever lost to them, apart from one last visit.  
_The last goodbye of old gods, perhaps,_ a quiet voice whispered in the back of his head. It sounded surprisingly much like father. What an arrogant way to think.  
Thor tried to blink before remembering that he had to turn his head to see things on his right-hand-side. Loki didn’t look at him for a moment, just kept his eyes on the wide windows and the stars beyond.

“How mutual exactly was your and Jane’s breakup?” he asked then, carefully, looking like he was trying to blend into the grey wall behind him. Thor turned to face him better, confused, and crossed his arms. Why was Loki asking about that?  
“What about it?” he asked. Loki shrugged but looked him dead in the eye. Of all the topics in the whole universe, that was what Loki wanted to reply as his need from Midgard? What was going on?  
“Call me curious.”  
“I already told you. Neither one of us dumped the other. It was just an agreement,” Thor said. Jane had been a little angry and miserable, of course, and so had he, but he would have lied if he had denied that they had both already been waiting for the golden days to end.

“What I mean is, do you think she’d still want to see you?” Loki asked softly, sounding a little bit curious and not a small amount wary. “If you were to ask her, now.”  
Thor had to tilt his head and mull over the question for a moment. There was a good chance he would never see her again, if they fled now, further away from Yggdrasil’s slowly withering branches than ever before. That was… well, it wasn’t nice, of course, but they had said their goodbyes already before his journey to Vanaheim and Muspell’s land.  
“I don’t know,” he said. He really didn’t. Loki let out a breath that was either relieved or annoyed. Thor looked at him and frowned softly.  
At the very least Jane wouldn’t greet him with a tight embrace and a sweet kiss if he appeared on her doorstep. Not that their falling out had been worse than any others Midgardians used to have (except that they both had just… cried and then sat in an awkward silence for half an hour). It still stung a little.

But Loki’s tone was almost _hopeful_ , now that he was staring at Thor and asking about it. It struck Thor like a hit in the head.

“What the hell are you trying to do to her?” he asked. Loki couldn’t be serious about this.  
“I’m…” Loki closed his mouth and drew back, looking as surprised as when he’d first answered Thor’s call on Sakaar. His brows creased and he stared at Thor for a while, open-mouthed.  
“What?” he asked with a disbelieving snort.  
No!” Thor said. “Didn’t you get enough attention on that trash heap already?” he snapped. Lounging on the couches with women and men of all species, and with even the Grandmaster fawning over him, Thor would have thought Loki had got enough company to last for at least over a day.  
Loki’s face fell and he froze. He stared at Thor with his brows creased, looking even more shocked at being denied. Or was it genuine after all, about something else? Thor hesitated, taking half a step back again. Loki let out a long breath through his nose.

“What do you think I was going to ask?” Loki hissed, lowering his voice. There was a mocking, disbelieving edge in his expression that made Thor clench his jaw.  
“You’re not dating Jane!” he told Loki firmly and pointed a finger at him. That was the least he owed her, after all that she’d had to put up with. “She has her own life.”

Loki’s face twisted in five different emotions all at once, too quick for Thor to catch, and finally it all settled down into an insulted lift of his eyebrows - all right, clearly a mistake was made somewhere along the way. Thor braced himself. He had seen a mocking look like that one too often in the last decade.

“I am not asking for your blessing here, I don’t even know the woman,” Loki said. “I’m asking if she hates you little enough so that she’d agree to talk to us.”  
“To us?” Thor asked. What was Loki going on about?  
“About the Gems, Thor!” Loki yelled at his face, answering before Thor had a chance to ask his question. He was nearly spitting each word out. “The infinity stones! The mad aliens snapping on our heels right now!”  
“Loki, calm down…” Thor tried.  
“Why would I ask you something like that? I’ve met your Jane once!” Loki kept on going, and didn’t calm down. “You think me still so hungry for your scraps that I’d go after her? Thank you, you really have my heartfelt thanks for thinking this highly of me!”  
“She’s not the scraps of anyone, and I’m stressed out!” Thor snapped back. Loki shut his mouth. “And you’ve been acting really weird for the last few years! How am I supposed to know what you want with her?”  
“She held the Aether within herself,” Loki said. “She knows how it moves.”

They stared at each other for a moment.

“So you think that she’d…?” Thor asked, but trailed away. Loki was giving him an odd look, something that took him back a few centuries, to a green garden somewhere that no longer existed.  
_Do you think we need help this time?_ he had asked, perhaps in a mocking tone. He couldn’t remember what it was about - perhaps several memories fused into one - but Loki had looked at him with his mouth pressed into a thin line just like now, nose runny with the hay fever he had often got when the summer heat rose.  
“That she would be able to help us?” the Loki of now filled in. Swallowed and looked away much like he had in Thor’s memories, before taking a deep breath.  
“Yes, I do. She’s clever,” he said. “You were lucky to find her that first time.”

And just how far did the desert of New Mexico feel from where he was now, when even that had been but a blink of an eye ago. Thor took a deep breath.  
“You’re rather brilliant, brother, when you try,” he said. Loki looked surprised and a little taken aback. Thor shrugged and smiled a little, and after that Loki rolled his eyes.  
“Well, I know that, but that’s beside the point right now,” he scoffed, but in a way Thor wanted to believe was at least a little bit amused. 

“Do you think she’d agree to meet with us?” Loki asked again. Thor looked out into the wide open space and rubbed his chin.  
“To travel with us?” he asked under his breath  
“Eventually, yes, since we can’t stay on Midgard. Surely you understand that.”  
There was a long pause filled with a hundred thoughts and doubts, and Loki’s anxiously expectant looks.  
“Maybe,” Thor said eventually, but he hesitated. Loki frowned like he was doubting he’d heard right.  
“Maybe, that’s what you’ve got? Am I going to open you a wormhole for a maybe, Thor? For a perhaps?” he asked and folded his hands behind his back like a pissed-off statue.  
“No, I just…” Thor cut himself off and let out a deep breath. He turned to look away, shoulders tense. Loki waited for a moment longer, tapping his fingers against the wrist guards over the back of his hands.  
“You just?” he asked. Thor sighed.  
“I don’t want to upset her.”

“I hate to inform you, Thor, but we have _seventeen hundred people_ on this ship,” Loki said, sounding pissed off, “who are going to be very upset with you, if we are blown to pieces within the next week or two.”  
“I know that!” Thor said back. He ran his palms over his face. “I just don’t think it will help if it’s me asking her.”  
“That bad, was it,” Loki scoffed without any real edge.  
“No,” Thor replied, still needled by the jab.  
“Okay,” Loki sighed and paced a few steps. He turned around to let his eyes wander freely, and Thor followed suit. 

“Banner. He’s human,” Loki said suddenly, like he hadn’t even realised it before then. “Do you think Jane would talk to Bruce?” he asked.  
“I think so. Even you do,” Thor shrugged. For a second Loki looked oddly satisfied with his little victory, but it disappeared as quickly as it came. Something very tired replaced it.  
“Do you trust me and Bruce to go alone, and persuade her to be kidnapped here?” he asked slowly. Thor grimaced.  
“...not really, no.”

“For the -” Loki let out a sound that was half groan, half screech, grabbing Thor’s shoulders and shaking him as firmly as he could. Thor lifted his hands carefully and planted them on his chest, pushing him a bit further from his face.  
“I am supposed to be the madman in this family, I can’t come up with everything!” Loki yelled at him.  
“Loki, calm down,” Thor said. The conversation was starting to feel very familiar at that point.  
“I can’t!” Loki barked and shoved him away. “You’re acting like a child, refusing to meet your old sweetheart for the stupidest of reasons! We need her help. I can’t fix this on my own, all right, but I’m trying. I’m trying to fix what I did, and what Jane Foster did, and you’re not even -”  
“Take Valkyrie with you,” Thor said.

“What?” Loki asked. Thor nodded over to the door. She was out there, somewhere.  
“Brunnhilde. Take her with you. She can talk the Hulk down if he throws a tantrum, and you can talk to Jane.”  
“By the Norns, Thor... “ Loki muttered, and buried his face in his hands. “That’s four people already that I would have to keep on the path.”  
“But you can do it, can you?” Thor asked.  
“Of course I can!” Loki snapped, confirming that he was just as easy to goad into doing stupid things as Thor had always been. “It’s just… a lot,” he added, and Thor smiled a little.

“I trust you’ll manage. Aren’t you the highest witch in all of Asgard, now?” he said and clapped Loki on the shoulder.  
“I’m not a witch,” Loki ground out, but was holding back a smile of his own.  
“Yes you are.”  
“Shut up.”


	3. The Thing? What Thing?

Bruce had to thank his internal clock for keeping his sleeping rhythm strangely intact wherever he went and whatever he did. Or maybe it was the Hulk. Fuck that guy. No matter how little he slept, he woke up early.   
But he was warm and surprisingly comfortable, someone had their heavy arm draped over his chest, and he could feel a steady heartbeat under his head. Bruce took a deep breath and cracked an eye open to see where he was, but it was pretty useless. The darkness was everywhere, deeper than on any planet he had ever been. (Two and a half, now, even though they blew up the one half.)

The big warmth under his neck was probably Thor. Bruce fumbled in the dark and tried to check whose hand was so close to his throat. They took a firm hold of his hand as soon as he tried to move the heavy arm, and the sleepy little sound next to his ear was Brunnhilde’s. She snuggled closer, and Bruce had an eerie feeling of being one of those stuffed toys kids swear are actually alive, while simultaneously choking them to death.  
Okay. He could deal with that for a while. Weird, but okay. At least Brunnhilde stopped moving and didn’t seem like she was any closer to strangling him than she had been.

But someone else was choking. The gasp was hoarse and cut off in the end, slurred and sleepy, but it sounded pained.   
“Hey?” Bruce whispered softly. It had to be Loki making the sound, because Thor was still sleeping, steady as a boulder. “You all right?”  
There was no reply, and the choked sounds eased a bit, so Bruce sighed and blinked against the darkness. Maybe it was snoring. Maybe Loki was a snorer, and all the Asgardians were really heavy sleepers, and Bruce could try and rest his own eyes for a while longer.

It didn’t take long for Loki to choke in his own spit again, but this time it was followed with a kick down on Bruce’s shin like a sledgehammer. _Someone_ took it as an excuse to scream out loud.

“Oh my GOD! No!” Bruce yelled back. No, he wasn’t going to go back down again, not now. His pulse was racing, but Thor’s was calm - he stirred a little, but he was still there. It helped a little.  
“Jesus, dude!” Bruce snapped, this time at Loki, and sat up. His left shin felt like it was on fire, and it would probably get a footprint-shaped bruise for weeks. Thor groaned and was probably finally waking up.  
“What’s going on?” Brunnhilde mumbled.  
“How does your leg weigh a ton when it looks like a, a juice box straw, the hell...?” Bruce cursed, trying to shove Loki’s legs away in the dark.

“Lights on,” Brunnhilde said, climbing up on her knees, and Bruce had to squint when the room turned from black to bright.   
“Lackey, wake up.”  
Loki’s eyes were wide open and he was definitely hyperventilating, and even if he looked like he was trying to crawl backwards into some secret hiding hole, lying on his side was probably compressing his lungs more than helping. He didn’t look like he was actually awake, though, just stared forward with empty eyes and struggled to breathe.   
“Thor, don’t freak out, but I think your brother’s in the middle of a sleep paralysis or something,” Bruce said, and was immediately jostled by Thor sitting up and freaking out a little.  
“In the middle of what?” Thor rasped.

Loki chose that moment yell out from the top of his lungs and scramble up so quickly that he almost punched Brunnhilde in the nose with his shoulder.  
“Calm down,” Bruce tried, and Thor and Brunnhilde were echoing similar words. Loki swayed on his feet and stared at them for a long time, chest heaving and hair a mess, eyes and nostrils wide.

“What are you doing here?” he asked after a while, eyes twitching between them. He sounded like he was trying to figure out if it was still a dream.  
“We were sleeping. But I guess it could be morning now,” Brunnhilde snorted.  
“I guess it’s good you woke everyone up,” Bruce said, and he didn’t exactly want to be mean, but… well, Loki hadn’t exactly been the nicest person around, either. They were probably even.

“Loki, are you all right?” Thor asked carefully. Bruce moved out of the way for him to stand up too, towering over him. Why were all Asgardians so tall, anyway?  
“Yes,” Loki said with so little tone in his voice that it had to be an instinct to just blurt out a lie like that. “The sooner we get moving, the better,” he added then, one hand straying to his throat before dropping it and shaking his head. That one sounded a bit more honest, and Bruce didn’t really like that the tone was scared.  
Probably just sleep, a nightmare. It was safe to assume that they all had those.

“Moving where?” Brunnhilde asked and frowned, looking suspiciously between Thor and Loki. “We’re not in a hurry to get to Midgard, are we?” It was a good question, but Loki seemed a bit too skittish to answer.  
“We’re… not going to Midgard,” Thor said and swallowed. “We can’t stay there.”  
“What do you mean? That’s my home,” Bruce asked and took a deep breath. Of course they could go. Maybe Earth had enough problems with its own internal immigrants already, and maybe a ship full of super-powered beings could be seen as a problem, but it wasn’t that bad, was it.

Judging by the three hesitant looks suddenly aimed at him, it might have been exactly that bad.

“Do you want to go home?” Thor asked and lifted his brows in a way that was probably supposed to look friendly and earnest, but really just made him look like a sad dog.  
“He can go,” Loki said, way too quickly, and Bruce saw him holding a careful hand over his throat again. Just what had that waking dream been about?   
“I’m not a hostage, am I? Of course I can go, I just…” Bruce said. He hadn’t even thought about it like that.   
“But I was away for three years?”  
“Yeah,” Brunnhilde said and looked at him in a way that made something uncomfortable rise up in his throat.

“It’s way too early for this, I can’t deal with this right now,” Bruce sighed and buried his face in his hands to hide from the Asgardians, just for a moment. It didn’t help a lot when he could still feel their stares even with his eyes closed.   
He didn’t really even care anymore. If no one had missed him for all that time, there was a good chance they wouldn’t miss him any more if he never returned. And Tony would have already found a way to contact the jet or probably just trace the fucking Hulk itself if he would have really been on the lookout for him. What a nice and comforting thought.

“Yeah, whatever,” he said and looked up. “As long as I don’t have to let the Hulk go wild any time soon, I’m in. I have no more things to lose than you guys do.”   
Brunnhilde laughed at that, but not in an unkind way, and Thor gave him a strained but very warm smile. Loki's expression was weird, but not harsh either. He must have still been confused from sleep as he was staring a little bit past Bruce's shoulder, but he didn't comment on it.  
From all three Asgardians, it was as warm a welcome as he could have hoped.

“Let me help you up, Bruce,” Thor said, and it was actually really nice to hear him say his name, and not just talk about the Hulk all the time. _Damn,_ he was easy, and Thor played him like ping pong. But it was okay - Bruce still let Thor pull him into a bit too-tight hug, and smiled back when Thor held his arm in a very odd and somber handshake before letting go. Brunnhilde smiled too and clapped him on the shoulder.  
“I’m happy that we can keep you on board,” she said.  
“Thanks. I'm happy that you invited me, I guess.”

“Is that all?” Loki asked, sounding notably less amused. Even though he still stood tense, his face was just tired and pale. “We could discuss the coming day, too,” he said, looking at Thor.  
“Can it wait until we’ve made sure we and everyone else gets something to eat?” Bruce asked.   
“Is that really on the top of your mind right now?” Loki asked, and luckily some of his usual edge returned. It would have really ruined Bruce’s day if he had to worry about everything else and Loki on top of that.  
“Yeah, it is,” he said. What a douchebag - he'd almost forgotten what a sunshine Loki was really like. “You have a spaceship full of homeless people here, women and children. Guys, if we’re not going to Earth, we’re gonna have to make up some kind of way to hear issues and hand out resources as quickly as possible. Does anyone on this ship know about what you’ve been talking? Because I sure don’t.”

Loki and Thor looked at each other with lifted eyebrows and little head-shakes that spoke more than a voiced conversation probably could. For two born and bred politicians and self-proclaimed kings they really sucked at the whole ruling thing.

“Yeah, I didn’t think so,” Bruce said and sighed. Brunnhilde gave him a knowing look. “I spoke to some of the healers yesterday. One healer for eighty people, that makes about twenty-two healers, right, Loki, we talked about that?”  
“We did.”  
“We should probably gather them, tell them to spread out and find those eighty each,” Bruce said. “I don’t see any other way to do this.”   
“Yeah, we can’t really put everyone in a line and pick teams,” Brunnhilde nodded, before falling silent. Then her face scrunched up and she lifted a finger, looking at the brothers sharply. “You’ve read your history books, right? What about the _thing_.”

Loki stood up straighter, as if he was surprised by something, and Thor’s face turned thoughtful.   
“The thing?” Bruce asked. “What thing?”  
“The Allthing. The assembly,” Thor said and lifted up a hand to brush over his jaw. “They used to have it… before the Council of the Realm that works under the king.” He glanced over at Loki, who was also looking surprisingly curious.  
“It might work,” Loki said and tilted his head with a little twist of his mouth.   
“It’d be better than the panicked grouping we have now,” Brunnhilde said. Loki and Thor both nodded at her words.  
“Provided you’re ready to give the people that power, brother,” Loki added, looking almost like he wanted to smile a little. Bruce stared at the three of them - all looking like they had experienced some big enlightenment.  
“Oh my god,” Bruce said when it hit him, and it made him want to start laughing too. Was a disaster emigration really enough to make these thousand-year-old royals make a complete 180 turn?

“You’re talking about _a parliamentary_ monarchy, are you?” he asked. It couldn't be.  
“Something along those lines,” Loki said, and it must’ve been some real good news, because his amused look didn’t disappear anywhere when it passed over Bruce.   
“It’s exactly that,” Thor agreed slowly. “Where’s Heimdall?”  
“If we’re lucky, on his way here already,” Brunnhilde grinned.  
“I think further plans can wait until we’ve let the healers loose,” Loki said, and even though Bruce would have never said it out loud, the way he grinned at Thor like any annoying younger brother would was honestly pretty adorable.  
“Let’s do it, then,” Thor said and let out a laugh that made him puff his chest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case you want to read how they all ended up sleeping in a cuddle pile, check the previous installment in this series, "Leaves of a Faraway Branch". It was a standalone at first but I just couldn't resist.


	4. I think our team is a bit better

People in Tromso were usually not the type who’d come up and ring the doorbell just for fun, and in a few months Jane had relearned that easily. It made the town a good place for focusing on her research, and she was happy that she had got a place in their physics team again. The bad part was that it made her very suspicious when the doorbell did ring, that day at 3:50 in the afternoon.

“Just a moment,” she called out, pulling on a thicker sweater. Answering the door in a tank top and sweatpants would have felt silly, especially if it was a mailman or a pair of preachers or school kids selling something to fund a class trip.  
Jane froze when someone knocked on the door with a very heavy thud. Not kids, then. Had she paid all her bills? She had. She stared at the lock and handle for a little moment before she dared to open it. 

Three people stood in the sunlit stairway. Short, tall, taller. Pale, dark, even paler. Jeans, tracksuit, suit suit.

“Loki?” she blurted out. It slipped from her before Jane had a chance to stop herself, and it would have been a really uncomfortable name to call someone in Norway if it _hadn’t actually been Loki_ standing at her door. But Jesus, it was him. In human clothes and shiny shoes. He nodded with an expression that would have looked apologetic on any other face.  
“You died,” Jane said, not feeling particularly intelligent after that.  
“I did, yes,” Loki said slowly, and his voice really sounded a little like last week’s lunch reheated.  
“Then how are you here?” she asked, staring at him. Where was Thor? 

“Hey, could we come in for a moment?” the shorter man asked, older than Loki by his face but sounding so human and so normal (rushed and tired) that Jane breathed out in relief.  
“Who are you?” she asked.  
“Bruce Banner, hi. I’m really sorry we haven’t met in person yet, Doctor Foster. And this might not be the best time either, but your work is incredible,” he said and smiled tightly. Jane did a double take when she shook his hand.  
“Bruce Banner?” she asked. He nodded. “What are you doing here?”  
“Uh… it’s a bit messy, honestly,” he said and looked over at Loki. Was he on an Avengers business because of Loki? (Jane had heard about the Hulk incident, after all, and while it didn’t sound pleasant it was probably an effective way to shut up an Asgardian.)  
Loki had closed his eyes and seemed startled by their looks when he opened them again. Something was off with his face.

“Yeah, we’re in a bit of a hurry,” the woman huffed. “Hi. I’m Brunnhilde,” she said and smiled at Jane, and she sounded just as tired and out of breath as Loki and Doctor Banner did, even if she looked to be a little less so. Her handshake was really strong, but it wasn’t as weird or formal as some of Thor’s.  
“I’m sorry, what did you want?” Jane had to ask. Her whole brain felt like a fried phone with bad wifi.  
“Can we come inside?” the woman said - Brunnhilde, that sounded like an Asgardian name too, even though she wore a teal-coloured tracksuit.  
“Yeah, sure, come in,” Jane said.

For a moment she debated just closing the door and returning to her computer and notes, going on with her day without any further thoughts spared to this crazy fever dream. But it was real, because when she stepped back and pushed the door open for her three guests to step in, the scent of blood and sweat and something charred was a bit too strong to be blamed entirely on her wild imagination.  
It didn’t feel any more promising than their vague words.

“You died,” Jane repeated when she pulled the door closed, and pointed at Loki. He was blinking hard as he nodded again, avoiding direct eye contact with any of them like it would make the surreal fact of him living go away.  
“I saw you die,” Jane repeated. He kept nodding softly and whispered something under his breath. “Where’s Thor?”  
“He’s waiting - we’ve parked… somewhere in the vicinity of… this area,” he said, and the first image Jane saw was that of a shady van with Thor thrown in the back, wrapped in duct tape.  
“Are you an Asgardian too?” she asked the Brunnhilde.  
“Yeah. There’s a few of us waiting,” she said and smiled tightly, dark eyes squinting a little in the corners, and gestured apologetically.  
“Okay,” Jane said, wary. It didn’t sound good.  
“I am honestly sorry for all of us to barge in like this, but we’re really in a tight spot. I’ve heard a lot of good about you,” Brunnhilde said smoothly before slamming a rough elbow into Loki’s side. “Lackey. Start your story, or whatever.”

At least it brought Loki back from his thoughts. Jane stared at the three of them, cramped in her tiny hall.

“Do you have time to sit down, or…? How acute is this hurry?” she asked.  
“Verily so, no need to boil the tea” Loki said and looked at her properly for the first time. His eyes felt like they drilled through her head, and they were a warm and bright amber gold - not at all how Jane remembered his chilly looks.  
“What’s wrong with your eyes?” she asked. What if it wasn’t Loki, after all? It could be some sort of an alien, shapeshifter (and wasn’t it just hilarious that a thought of “not Loki” was suddenly so frightening).  
“I’m holding hands with Heimdall,” he scoffed and lifted a hand to his brow with a sneer that was so sleazy that all doubts vanished. It looked a little like he was getting a headache. 

“With Heimdall?” Jane stared at him.  
“Heimdall, yes, the Gatekeeper,” Loki said slowly and clearly.  
“No, I know who he is, but what does that mean? How do you do that?” she asked. None of that magic bullshit, please. There had to be a real explanation for something that sounded like textbook telepathy, and _Jane wanted to know what it was_.  
“Without the Bifröst’s connections I wouldn’t be able to get us all back whole if I didn’t let him inside my head to keep us linked,” Loki said, all magic bullshit. “Fuck,” he hissed then, covering his eyes for a moment.  
Jane didn’t think she’d heard him cuss before. It sounded really nasty and blunt coming from his mouth.  
“Serves you right,” Brunnhilde muttered, and Doctor Banner was giving him a similar side-eye.

Good thing was that she didn’t seem to be alone in finding Loki at least a little suspicious, and that apparently Thor and Heimdall were in on this after all. Bad thing… probably everything else.

“Okay, can you explain your emergency?” she asked. “Assuming there is one.”  
“We really need your help. It’s about the…?” Doctor Banner trailed off, turning to Brunnhilde. They both glanced at Loki, and Jane felt uncomfortable, when he just spread his hands and his annoyed frown made room for something way more miserable. 

He looked at her again with the really wrong pair of eyes, and she felt shivers running up her spine. This really didn’t seem good.  
“The infinity stones. Tesseract. Aether,” Loki said. He inclined his head almost politely - like in a way that if it had been Thor doing it, it would have looked polite. “We do need your help, that much is true.”  
“You still have those?” Jane asked, feeling alarmed. Wasn’t the Aether supposed to be taken somewhere safe? A faint memory of something dark and bright pulsing inside her mind tried to lift its head, but she pushed it back down.  
“I do, yes,” Loki said.  
“Right.” He alone, the stones were with him? Jane couldn’t help the shocked face she pulled. He looked confused, maybe fake-insulted.  
“What? You don’t trust me?” he snorted, Heimdall’s eyes staring from his face. Jane tried to shake her worry away.

“So you need my help with what exactly? I’m not really into world domination,” she said anď walked past him to where she kept her journals and notebooks. There were notes on the Aether somewhere there, and a lot of Erik’s calculations on the Tesseract, as soon as she just found them under the sheer amount of other notes she had made in four years.  
“It wouldn’t be ideal if you were,” Loki said, not laughing at her quip. “Unless you can find a way to destroy them, Ragnarök will not have ended.”

Jane stopped on her way to the other drawer.

“Ended?” she asked and turned around to stare at the three. “When did it start?”  
No one said a thing for a good while. They all looked worn - just how much of Loki’s smart suit and Brunnhilde’s neat braids were real? If Ragnarök was the end of the world, how could they talk about it like that, standing in her hall next to her laundry basket? Jane tried to speed up her search for the notes. Loki’s hair was curlier than it had been, and poor Doctor Banner and Brunnhilde both looked like they needed at least a year of sleep.  
“When Odin died,” Loki ground out. He squeezed his eyes shut, doing the headache face again. One file with “Asgard” scribbled over it was in her hands already, but Jane knew that the thick orange-cover notebook was somewhere too.

“Wait, Odin’s dead? Your dad?” she asked when the words hit her. A cold weight dropped in her stomach. Thor’s dad, too. He hadn’t been a nice man from what little Jane had spoken with him, and Jane definitely saw where Loki had got his charming personality, but dead? That was a lot and she felt herself pale. 

“What did you do?” she asked.  
“What did I do?” Loki repeated and sounded so angry that his voice shook a little even if he tried to keep it low. He blinked hard at her, and no, shit, she didn’t mean it like that. “I didn’t do a thing -”  
“Hey, man, not now,” Bruce Banner said and lifted a hand. It made Loki step back so quick that it was more of a flinch.  
“I did not,” Loki grumbled, but shut his lips tightly after that, looking like he was trying to hide a ton of emotions in a very small jar. Jane didn’t know what to say to that.

Odin was dead, the end of the world had started. How did Asgard get that messed up in four years?

“I’m sorry, Doctor Banner, why are you with them?” Jane asked. It would have been so nice to get at least one thing to make sense. But Banner shook his head, crushing that hope.  
“Uhm… I got really lost and now I’m neck-deep in their mess,” he said and shrugged. “What can you do.”  
“Okay.” There was probably a longer story to be unlocked, but Jane just wasn’t on that level yet. Nice.

“I have some notes on the Aether here somewhere, I can give them to you,” she said. Brunnhilde uncrossed her arms and stepped a little closer. Jane felt a bit wary when she offered one of the notebooks to the woman. Asgardian people seemed to have a habit of getting very intense very quickly (at least from what few Jane had met), but luckily she didn’t look angry.  
“Thanks,” Brunnhilde said and leaned closer to Jane. Her eyes were steady and serious. “I’m no scholar, I’m a soldier, but Thor and Loki both insist that you’re the best in your field. And you’ve held one of the Gems,” Brunnhilde said. Her voice was soft but Jane still heard the commanding tone. Loki and Doctor Banner looked at her from the door.  
“Okay. Well, I did, but I don’t really -” Jane tried.  
“We’re here to ask if you’d like to come and help us in person,” Brunnhilde said. She smiled, but something in it was very unhappy. Jane smiled back, tense and uncomfortable.

“I’d love to,” she started, skimming through the pages in a black journal. Better put that one in the pile too. “But I’ve just started a new period here, I’m getting funding for my research and some teaching gigs too,” she said. 

She really couldn’t go to Asgard, if Odin was dead and…

“Jane, Asgard is no more,” Loki said, and the strain in his voice was definitely growing. Was it the eye thing or was it because of her?  
“What do you mean?” she asked. “You just said that you wanted me to come with you.”  
“To a spaceship! No more Asgard, it isn’t anymore!” he snapped, and Jane balked. Loki’s face twitched and he pulled his posture ramrod-straight, paling even further.  
“What?”  
“It has ended,” Loki said. “We had no other choice but to let the prophecies run their course.”  
“The whole place exploded in a shit-ton of little pieces. Thanks to this arse,” Brunnhilde supplied a little tightly. Jane didn’t know if her relaxed speech or the implication that Loki had blown Asgard up was more confusing.

At least Loki looked to be just as much on the edge as she was.  
“Everything is coming to an end. I’m holding onto the last residue of Bifröst’s tracks as we speak, just to get us out of here,” he said and took a deep breath. “So your help would be appreciated.”  
“We’re also trying to keep over a thousand refugees in an okay shape,” Banner said, just mildly put-off like he was talking about the gray weather. His tired eyes shocked Jane.  
“How?” Jane asked, dreading the answer.  
“Well… I don’t know, really. If you know where the nearest grocery store is, that’d be great. I’d buy all their flour and oatmeal before we get back.”

Jane frowned and fell silent. She grabbed a canvas bag and threw in all of the notes she had pulled out of the drawers and shelves.  
A deep breath. Another. First, get the papers in order. That was done. She had some stuff on her laptop, but she could print it out quickly.  
Then they wanted her to find a way to destroy the Aether.

“I thought they can’t be destroyed,” she said and gave Loki a suspicious look. The Aether had just reassembled itself after his and Thor’s stunt on Svartalfheim. Loki took a bit too long time to reply.  
“They’re entities of cosmic energy. I’d think dismantling one would be easier than trying to compress all of that into a certain shape,” he argued, and at least sounded like he believed himself. The Aether wasn’t solid, at least. Maybe there was a melting point or a form of radiation that could affect the Tesseract too. Jane sighed.  
“What about my work?” she asked. Not that she was really trying anymore, but this didn’t sound like a quick weekend, not at all. Doctor Banner rubbed his face and looked like he wanted to get away.  
“You’d be saving the universe, so…” Brunnhilde shrugged and made a face. “I think our team is a bit better than the university.”

Jane could feel her heart hammering and she felt a little faint. Banner looked anxious, Brunnhilde smiled, and Loki looked about like he would either burst into tears or flames, depending on her answer. Maybe it was just the weird, warm, wrong eyes in his face, but he looked even more gaunt and worn than she remembered him.  
Thor had saved the Earth from so much already. Maybe she owed him this, even if they weren’t… dating.

“Okay,” Jane said, and was met with a shocked silence.  
“Really?” Brunnhilde asked.  
“Yeah, let’s do it,” she replied and grabbed a piece of paper to scratch her notes on. “I’ll come to space. With you guys.”  
When she looked up again Loki looked like he was about to faint, but Brunnhilde and Banner laughed in relief. Even if the situation was horrible and confusing, Jane had to admit that she was maybe a little bit flattered that they’d think of her as a… world-saving person. Universe-saving, even.

It was cool.

“So right now? Can I get an hour to pack?” Jane asked Loki. He seemed to be in charge of their recruitment mission, at least in name. He nodded once, eyes wide, and then kept nodding and let out a long breath while staring at the floor.  
“Thanks. I’ll give you the address to the store. I’ll try to draw you a map too,” Jane said and looked up at Doctor Banner, who scrambled closer to the kitchen table. “It’s not a big super market though, they don’t really have those up here.”  
“No, no, it’s okay,” Banner replied, but then his face turned a little embarrassed. “You wouldn’t have any cash though? I have, uh… Tony’s credit card in my pocket, I think, but it’s been in space for like… three years.”  
“Yeah, sure,” Jane said. Whatever. It wouldn’t help her soon anyway.

“I’ll help you pack,” Loki said when Brunnhilde and Banner squeezed past him, but it was more of a statement than an offer. Jane nodded and threw the bag of notebooks to his arms, and luckily he caught it.  
“All the clothes and everyday tools you can think of, we’re taking them too,” he said. Jane lifted her eyebrows.  
“I can’t carry all of my stuff,” she said.  
“We can,” Brunnhilde said and ushered Bruce out of the door. “I know Lackey looks scrawny as hell but I’d bet my arm he could lift Thor if he really tried,” she grinned.  
“Get to the shop already, Scrapper!” Loki barked. Jane didn’t recognise the hand gesture Brunnhilde made at him, but it seemed a little rude.

“What did I sign myself up to,” she sighed when the door closed. Loki’s shoulders slumped a little, but he gave her a small humourless smile.  
“The end of a world and the start of a new one, provided we’re lucky enough” he said dryly. “Welcome aboard.” It sounded horrible.  
“Thanks, I guess,” Jane said.

Loki put the canvas bag down by the door and turned around to look for another, but Jane was frozen still.  
“Now, where do you keep your towels and linens?” he asked, and judging by the sound of their problems it was basically stealing her things for a Red Cross project. Of all the posible Loki burglary scenarios it was probably the best one.  
But dear god how the eyes _really_ bothered her. Heimdall had seemed so steady and warm and immovable, maybe even more the opposite to Loki than Thor was. It was unnerving to look at so trustworthy eyes in Loki’s face.  
“Jane?” he asked and narrowed his horrible eyes.  
“Sorry, they’re in that tall closet around next to the bedroom,” she said and shook herself. Loki nodded and yanked the doors open, not even bothering to open and check what the folded bedsheets and towels were when he started pulling them out in piles. 

They were going to leave.

“Do you mind if I… call Erik before we go? And my mom, and Darcy. And maybe Lotte from the uni,” Jane asked carefully. She hadn’t really had enough time to think about anyone when she’d last left with Thor, but now they were packing her stuff to go. She wasn’t even planning to come back next week or… ever. She wasn’t going to Asgard, she was going to space.

Loki paused for a moment, holding a pile of towels against his chest, other hand on a shelf reaching for more.  
“Why would I say no?” he asked so softly that it surprised her.  
“I don’t know,” she admitted. “We’re in a hurry and I’m probably going to cry. It might be… distracting, or ugly or something.”  
“If I could leave last goodbyes before this, then I would do so,” he said and looked over his shoulder at her, wearing an odd expression. Jane shrugged a little - she couldn’t do much else either. 

“Go on,” Loki said. “I’ll empty this closet in the meantime.”  
“Okay,” Jane said and nodded. They were leaving. Okay. “Thanks.”

/ / / /

The late afternoon sun was shining directly in his eyes, and the bags he carried were pressing against his shoulders and arms so his skin was sweating under all the plastic and human fabrics. His eyes kept twitching to a certain spot in the air, and he blamed Heimdall for it.

It wasn’t that transportation between realms was impossible. It was just very taxing and required a fair amount of energy and skill. Finding pre-existing pathways made things easier, so they often established steady links from one world to another.  
That was why the Bifröst was built, in the first place, and why it best reached the realms already linked through the Great Ash. But Asgard was no more, and the branch that had grown through Midgard was shriveling away.

“So what you’re saying is that you’re going to be a human Bifröst,” Jane said, sounding wary and unconvinced. Loki tried to blink against the stars in his vision, and the jostle of Heimdall’s thoughts faintly mixing in with his own.  
_I can’t pull you back. I can only receive your fall._  
“Human, that’s debatable, Bifröst, yes,” Loki ground out, hoisting one more bag on his shoulder. “You should all get as close to me as you can, when the portal opens.”

“You sound worried,” Bruce said suspiciously, his arms full of groceries, and Loki tried to smile accordingly.  
“I am. We’re aiming for a much smaller, moving destination than on the way here, and I have to get all this new weight safely across,” he said and gestured at their bags and Jane.  
“Thanks,” Jane scoffed and gave him an ugly look.  
“You’re welcome.” It was nothing new, but at least she wasn’t crying anymore. It would have been uncomfortable at best to explain to Thor.  
“Loki, focus on your magic tricks, please,” Brunnhilde said, sounding exhausted, and wasn’t it just lovely to have a caring soul like her along for the ride.

“Hold on to your luggage,” he said when he felt the space around them charge and ripple, and Heimdall’s eyes opened his view to the the raw light of Yggdrasill.


End file.
